In high school sports we play no favorites
Published 3:15 pm Friday, September 11, 2009
High school sports fans around the North End can rejoice as stadiums, pools, soccer fields and tennis courts are again occupied with student athletes doing what they do.
Just as our publication schedule has changed — from a twice weekly to a weekly — so, too, will our sports coverage.
The paper goes to press on Thursday evenings, and the deadline for information for the paper is a loosely debated time on Wednesday afternoon. So, by the time the paper goes to press, some of the sports information is already a couple of days old.
For that reason, we will be shifting our focus a bit from game coverage to previews for the week and more in-depth features. We’ll still have game coverage but it won’t be our primary focus.
Deadlines aren’t the only challenge we face. Limited resources also come into play.
We have one writer, Brian Olson, who covers both sports and the education beat. As far as photographers go, we share ours, Brad Camp, with the Bainbridge Review.
Add to the mix that fall sports include cross country, football, girls soccer, boys tennis, volleyball, girls swimming and cheerleading (yes, Virginia, cheerleading is a sport), for two schools. That’s 14 teams for one reporter (who also covers education) and one photographer (whom we share).
Last year, the Herald was in the middle of a tug-of-war between the two schools. It seemed every time a sports story ran about Kingston, our phones would light up from angry parents claiming we were neglecting North. Every time we ran a story about North, well, you know. Truth be told, we were keeping track of how many stories we wrote, how long each story was and so forth. We ended the spring sports season nearly dead even, as we promised we would. But no matter. Each side still accused us of favoring the other school.
In a fit of despair — and quite frankly, emotionally and physically exhausted from defending our sports coverage — we enlisted the help of the district. We devised a system that makes the coaches responsible for sending in their sports results. So, if the team you’re following is feeling neglected, we likely did not receive the results or we received them after the print deadline. We might suggest a proactive approach: Volunteer to become the one responsible for sending sports results to our sports writer at bolson@northkitsapherald.com.
This year, the results we receive will be posted on our Web site, www.northkitsapherald.com, each day and will appear in print on a space-available basis.
All this is a work in progress. Please be patient and remember, we’re doing our best. And, all due honesty, we don’t play favorites.
